MFRW

Saturday, March 15, 2014

#MFRWorg Newbie's World: Do I Need A Blog?

Newbie’s Corner: Do I need a blog?

Big question. There are as many opinions on this one as there are, well, you know how that adage ends…

The question always comes down to, will this bring me more readers? Will more people buy my books if I’m blogging?

Let’s explore.

Advantages:

Trust: In order for readers to buy your books, they want to trust you, the author. So if you are continually serving up great content on your blog, then a potential reader might e more willing to buy your books.
Writing skills and time management: blogs are a great way to get out short, great messages, as well as a way to improve your dedication.
SEO: You want to be on the first page of Google, right? Well, blogs are liked by the magical Google spiders because they are updated more regularly than a static site.

Disadvantages:

Time: Ah, if only we had days and days filled with nothing but time to do what we wanted. But in our crazy writer lives, we are limited. So in between Facebook, Twitter, updates to our regular website, and actually writing, do you need another weekly commitment?
Platform: what are you writing about? It’s great that you have kids, recipes, and writing in your life. But do others want to read about that? (this is not meant sarcastically at all – some people have great blogs on all of the above. But is that your platform?)
Reciprocity: A big part of blogging is the reciprocal aspect. Blog hops, sharing other’s posts, gaining new followers by posting comments to others’ blogs, linking to Google+ and Goodreads blogs, Triberr…it’s a long list, once you go down the rabbit hole of blogging. Do you have the time and energy for it?

There is no easy answer for this question. For me, personally, I know that my readers like to read paranormal romances. But I don’t feel that I read enough in this genre in order to generate new content on a weekly basis.

My compromise with myself has been to write for others’ blogs or group blogs (like Heroes and Heartbreakers). This way, I’m reaching a larger viewership with established readers. And, the pressure is off for a weekly (or monthly) commitment.

However, I still need to relate everything back to Erin Moore, the author. That means keeping my messaging consistent – any of my readers could read anything I wrote. Here are some other general rules for writing for others:

1. Google Authorship: You want to make sure that you own your content so that Google searches for your name or books will link back to you. Here’s a very detailed explanation of how to do this.

2. Search for blogs in your genre with a large readership, but don’t neglect the small or medium blogs, either. These may have very dedicated followings. Trying to land a big blog? Try these tips.

3. Promote your guest post as you would for your own blog.

I know, I know…I still haven’t answered the essential question. Unfortunately, hard data on whether blogging promotes sales seems extremely hard to come by. If anyone has seen any real numbers on blogs increasing book sales, would love to hear about it!

For authors with their own blogs, the only way to determine if it is truly bringing in readers is by measuring traffic. Do blog readers click on buy links after finding your post?

In the end, like everything, it is a personal decision. Hope some of this information has been helpful.

Tell us what you think!

POSTED BY ERIN MOORE

Erin has been writing her entire life, but only recently found her voice in the paranormal romance world.

She's an avowed chocoholic, loves travel and good tea, and finds her inner peace by meditating and writing. Fantasy, historical fiction, and romance are her inspirations.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

What Authors Should Know About Promo @jeffmp3 #MFRWorg #amwriting

Marketing for Romance Writers welcomes JP Adkins, founder of the new social media site MyAwesomeFans, for a look at authors and promoting well.

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MyAwesomeFans.com

Share about who are you vs. what you're doing.

We all know creative artists for whom the only reason they go onto social media is because they need to promote their book, blog, or whatever. Authors and other creatives typically have many different accounts for each pen name, but rarely share insights as to who they are as a person. The secret of social media is that if you are not giving people the "why" of what you are doing, they will not care about the "what" you are doing. Social media is a powerful platform to grow your "knowability" and "likeability", two of the most important factors for why people choose your products and services.

Remember when you created for fun?

When you were not worrying about deadlines or bottom lines? I have found that when you rely on your creativity for your food supply, it becomes a mad dash to reach more people, figure out how to get more sales, figure out how to climb the Amazon Rankings, how to get another review, etc. Sound familiar?

The issue we find is that in order to reach the most people, we have to be on many different media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook (Wall, Groups, and Page), G+, Pinterest, Instagram and the list goes on and on and on. We simply don't have time to be human on all of these platforms and still have time to create. I have a couple of tips that can help authors create engaging content while allowing yourself to stay focused on creating awesome products that please you. In the end, if it doesn't please you, it'll never please anyone else.

If you can't add value to a community, drop it.

What are you doing to help the community along? Are you there just to promote yourself? Is everyone in this group just promoting themselves or are they genuinely trying to help each other? These are all questions that you should be asking yourself. Facebook Groups for example. I know authors who are in forty-five+ groups and more than half of them are full of other authors cutting and pasting their promo-of-the-day. The only advantage to staying in that group is search engine hits, but most of the groups are secret and won't even be crawled by the search engines.

So, how do I do it all and stay sane?

I say do what makes you feel good and automate the rest. I personally use Facebook as my main social media platform. I have a Twitter account, a G+ account and a Tumblr account I use for various reasons. My Twitter life was changed when Kayelle Allen talked to me about Paper.Li! It creates digests of content from sources you select. I have two. One is full of inspirational speakers such as Dr. Wayne Dwyer, Deepak Chopra, and others, while the second is full of author friends. They both get tweeted out daily and I get a digest so that I can keep up with everything without spending much time on Twitter. If I see something that inspires me, I generally retweet it or I may share a quote. Twitter is my inspiration station. I want to get on there, get an inspirational bit, then go do whatever it is that I was doing.

My Tumblr account is my naughty side. I use it to inspire some of the erotic artists I know. Most of this is through reblogging, although I have shared links and snippets too naughty for Facebook.

I use my G+ account more for the Hangouts feature than anything else. I enjoy sharing meditations on Monday where my friends can tune in. The rest is promo, but I will say most of my circle follows me on Facebook and really doesn't use G+ for anything but promo either. The reason I even do that is because Google said it will no longer search through Facebook or Twitter statuses.

This brings me back to Facebook. I have a page for MyAwesomeFans, my wall, and belong to more secret groups people keep adding me to than promotional groups. I only have one account my family follows, so I try to keep things generally clean. What that does is let people know who I really am. They know why I am doing whatever it is I am working on from a very personal place. I am human. I am not just a robot on the other side of a screen just trying to sell people something. I do promote, but it isn't the only reason I exist. I also share things that make me feel something, engage in conversation, and try to help others achieve their dreams.

It's about connections.

In the end, it is about connecting with people. When we can remind people that there is another person on the other side of the screen, one who is very much the same as they are, it creates rabid fans and maybe a friend or two.

About JP Adkins

JP Adkins is an artist, writer, designer, Zen master, and marketing guru. He likes to see himself as someone who works hard at making life better for the people he comes in contact with both professionally and personally. He created the new social media platform http://MyAwesomeFans.com to help creative artists to better reward their fans while saving creators time and to help them make a little more money while they do it. You can set up your Fanclub free for one month using the coupon code: MFRW

Author Social Media

Twitter https://twitter.com/jeffmp3

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jeffmp3

Fanclub http://myawesomefans.com/index.php/groups/viewgroup/1-jp-adkins

Saturday, March 8, 2014

#MFRWorg The MFRW Newsletter History

When I started the January issue of the MFRW Newsletter, I reflected on how far we’ve come since we began back in November of 2008. There weren’t very many of us in MFRW back then and the Newsletter was about ten pages long each month. Now we’re up to sixty-plus pages some months, and in January we had a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author on our cover. Who ever would have thought we’d be helping a best-selling author to promote her books? Incredible.

I now have a staff of three assistant editors without whom I couldn’t possibly get this baby out the door. Each month in this column, I’ll highlight one of us so you can get to know us better.

So: How do you put together a successful Newsletter? First, decide how often you’re going to issue it. Once a week? Month? Quarter? I wouldn’t go any farther out than quarterly. You want to keep your audience engaged. I think monthly works, unless you have help. After all—you want your newsletter to be attractive, fun, and informative, but you also need time to write and keep up with your other promotional activities.

Next, what information do you want to disseminate in your newsletter? Of course you want to announce new releases and maybe keep your readers apprised of how you’re doing on your works in progress. Do you want to have guest authors? How much space do you want to give them? Do you want to post a bio? Interview? Tag Line? Blurb? Excerpt? What about cover art and photos? Don’t forget—the same copyright rules apply to photos you use in your newsletter as on your blog. How do you assemble this material? We’ll cover that in upcoming months.

Meanwhile, check out the MFRW Newsletter. You can access it both in our files and at Issuu.com. Here are the URLs.

Our Files: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MarketingForRomanceWriters/files/MFRW-Newsletter/2014%20MFRW%20Newsletter/

Issue: Issuu.com: http://issuu.com/mfrw/docs

And here’s a bit about me:

Rochelle Weber is a Navy veteran and holds a BA in Communications from Columbia College in Chicago with an emphasis on creative writing. “Would you like fries with that?” Her non-fiction article, “Bulimia,” was featured in Hair Trigger 9 & 10, the acclaimed Columbia College student anthology. Her first novel, Rock Bound, is available at CreateSpace, Smashwords, Amazon and BN.com. The digital version of her second novel, Rock Crazy is available at MuseItUp Publishing, Inc., and the print version’s available at CreateSpace and Amazon. She edits the Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter, and for Jupiter Gardens Press. Rochelle lives in Round Lake Beach, Illinois.